


Through His Eyes

by Nupitrr



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Anorexia, Child Abuse, Gen, High School AU, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 21:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8683837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nupitrr/pseuds/Nupitrr
Summary: A DMC highschool au I've been plotting for a while. I figured posting this first part will motivate me to write more of it later. It's only 2k right now, but it'll get longer and sadder with time. Spoiler: it's about eating disorders and mental illnesses in youth, and yes, you will probably cry at some point.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A DMC highschool au I've been plotting for a while. I figured posting this first part will motivate me to write more of it later. It's only 2k right now, but it'll get longer and sadder with time. Spoiler: it's about eating disorders and mental illnesses in youth, and yes, you will probably cry at some point.

He wasn't very popular around school. No, he wasn't popular at all. An unidentified face in the sea of students, easily forgotten with his less than outgoing personality. On some days he truly envied those who were constantly flocked by adoring people.

 

He'd never be able to handle so many people at once, but he liked to imagine that he could.

 

Then he'd see her, and he wished he could be one of those people. The girl who'd stolen his heart, the center of attention at their shitty public school in the shitty, poorly named city of Devil May Cry. She was effortlessly perfect no matter what she did, and he hated how unattainable she would always be to him. An outcast, forever just a face in the crowd.

 

He looked longingly at her from across the courtyard. She sat with her friends--what were their names? He should work on that-- while they ate lunch together. One girl leaned in and whispered something into her ear that she found hilarious. Her lilting voice carried across the courtyard and he sighed, transfixed as ever. Until, of course, Dante brought him back to reality.

 

"Still lusting after her I see." Dante draped an arm over his friend's shoulder and shook him. Nero turned towards him with mock hatred burning in his eyes. He took a gulp of water before splashing some in his direction.

 

"Fuck off. I like her for her, not her boobs or something dumb." Dante rolled his eyes. Nero shrugged his arm off his shoulder and resumed eating, his eyes finding their way back to Kyrie. She looked up, caught his eyes briefly and smiled. She fucking smiled.

 

"I just don't see what you see in her, but it's your love life, not mine." He turned his attention to Trish, whose head was resting on Lady's shoulder. They were the duo of their friends group, aptly named "The Fantastic Four." Those two were just so cute together that some days it bothered him. He sat quietly, flipping through his phone absently until the bell rang for the next class. He didn't want to go to class, but there was nothing else for him to do.

 

His last two classes passed uneventfully, and he was happy to meet Dante outside of school to go home. He'd chosen to get a ride that day instead of driving himself. He tossed his bag in the back seat and dropped himself in the passenger seat.

 

"We're still good for the gym later right?" Dante asked. He started the car and pulled onto the street leading towards Nero's house.

 

"Yeah sure. Still good for ordering pizza and ruining any results we may get?" They both laughed. It felt good to laugh like that.

 

"Oh shut up. Gonna take more than a little pizza to destroy these abs." Dante patted his stomach proudly with one hand, using the other to turn the wheel. Nero took his hand and forced it back on the wheel, glaring at him like some disapproving mother. Nero acted more maternal to him than his own mom did, and he didn't mind. They pulled up in front of his house, and Dante parked the car.

 

"Thanks. I'll drive myself to school tomorrow." Dante nodded, and was pulling off as soon as he'd grabbed his stuff from the backseat. He really didn't feel like doing anything, but there was homework to be done and repeating junior year wasn't in his game plan. As always his parents weren't home, so he cranked up his music and hopped on his bed. Homework, then a snack and a quick costume change before Dante came back for him. 

 

It was nearly impossible to focus with thoughts of Kyrie buzzing through his mind then entire time. By the time his ride had come, he'd barely finished whatever he'd had to do for calculus. 

 

He was still wildly unfocused at the gym, but that didn't stop him from competing with and beating Dante in a bench press contest. The ride home was quieter than most; his state of scatterbrain-ness made conversation next to impossible. He was too excited about his plan to ask Kyrie to the fall formal. He'd never been himself, so it would be a great experience for two reasons. He could hardly force himself to sleep that night.

 

In fact he got so little sleep that he was slightly concerned about driving himself to school and almost called Dante. No, he'd be fine. Sleep deprivation was nothing new to him by now.

 

 

He hardly recalled the events of that morning at all. His day boiled down to the main events; the moment when he asked Kyrie to formal, in the middle of the courtyard, around everyone she knew or admired her. He smiled wide as he waited watched her gauge her response.He wasn't sure how so many people figured out what Nero was up to since he was talking rather quietly. It seemed, however, that her voice echoed throughout the courtyard.

 

It was a curt ''no thanks' that sent a few giggles through the small crowd. People dispersed, Kyrie sat back down. Nero was forgotten. He could feel that smile he wore so proudly vanish. He hated the painful twisting in his stomach that wouldn't go away. Nero felt terrible. He made his way back towards Dante and sat down without a word.

 

Dante said nothing. He wrapped an arm around Nero's shoulder and held him in silence.

 

 

He’d been depressed for what seemed like years now. It had been something that most doctors would call “moderate clinical depression”. He would be fine for a week, maybe two, before everything seemed to implode. There was no will to get up. For school. Work. Showers. Even eating and using the restroom were struggles. In this slum he stayed for upwards of two weeks, consumed by the thoughts of not being good enough, being worthless, wishing for death. The merciless chokehold would let up some, enough that he could resume being what people deemed normal. It was a vicious cycle that he had no choice in.

 

Dante had seen Nero in those dark nights when he would just lay there and cry, shivering and limp in his bed. He had been the first to see him so lifeless. It had been years ago, all alone in his room staring blankly at the wall. Nero called it depression; Dante called it terrifying. He hoped to never see him like this again. It would become common for Dante to stay with him, act as his caretaker in his worst episodes. Nero, in turn, would come for Dante when he had too many, when his mother did too and used him for stress relief, when the hangovers were unbearable and the hatred was overwhelming. 

 

They were there for each other when no one else could be. When parents were less loving and their minds were against them, they had each other. It had been a childhood friendship that had evolved with age. Trips to the playground became trips to the corner store. Band aids on bruised knees were traded for gauze over deep cuts. Soda for fun became liquor to numb. It was a cycle, a symbiotic relationship that was helpful as much as it was toxic.

 

He remembered coming out of his mind, tears flowing in earnest as Dante held him tight, so fucking glad that he was just responding. He had to carry Nero to the bathroom and wash him--he had peed on himself several times, and he made note to clean the mattress too. Together they cleaned out the house a little, played some music from Nero’s favorite radio stations, sat outside in the grass admiring the clouds.

 

It wouldn't fix him, but it would help pull him off of the dangerous cliff he was walking towards. He couldn't bear to watch him fall apart like that.

 

It was another week before Nero was able to go through the motions of everyday life again. He was glad that his parents weren't home to hear all of the messages about how “your son Nero Blanco has missed the following periods of school today”. Even if they knew, they probably wouldn't care too much. So long as their little baby boy was alive and happy, all was well.

 

After school, on Nero's couch with a paper cup of Nero's favorite Starbucks and the heater on full blast. Dante glanced out the window, watched the snow fall slowly. The weather channel droned on about expecting six inches before midnight, but he didn't care. Nero, with his eyes finally full of life; with his chapped, cold lips curved into a smile; with his hands shaking ever so slightly around the warm cup. He felt a sort of maternal protection towards him. What would be do without this kid in his life?

 

“Why are you still here?” Nero's voice was soft, barely audible over the loud hum of the heater. He sat up, gave him a look of concern before slumping down again, hand resting on Nero's head.

 

“Well I mean besides the fact that mom’s been drinking a lot again,” he could feel Nero tense at the words, “I just want to make sure you're okay. Bros gotta have each other back. Especially in the wake of such a nasty rejection.”

 

He liked the way Dante's voice took on a light, sarcastic tone almost immediately. He laughed, felt the best he’d felt in weeks with nothing more than Dante's words. That Monday he finally went back to school, drove on snowy roads, under grey skies. He felt okay for the first time. He felt okay.

 

\--------------------

 

That Monday he received many weird looks. Most were out of concern, some were of amusement. And Nero tried his damnedest to ignore them all. Tried to pay attention in class and not be distracted by those negative thoughts that lurked on the horizon. At lunch, Dante brought him coffee again. The four of them moved to a lunch table further from Kyrie’s. Nero felt more at peace.

 

That night he went to the gym. Alone. Dante wasn't aware he was there, had finally been convinced to go home and take care of himself instead of being Nero's shadow once again. Two hours he was at the gym, and it was two hours that he ran on the elliptical. His lungs hurt and his legs were numb, but the pain was something bearable. Something distracting. Something of a coping mechanism.

 

When he got home, he weighed himself. Just outta curiousity. He wanted to see what his BMI was. 26.1. Overweight. Nero showered, tried to erase that number from his brain before it got the best of him.

 

As he slid into his sweatpants, his phone buzzed on his nightstand. He tapped the answer button without glancing at the called ID.

 

“Hello?”

“Hey you're still awake?” He knew that slur anywhere, Nero sighed and sat down on his bed.

 

“Damnit Dante I said ‘take care of yourself’ not drink yourself stupid.” There was a dry cackle on the other line and the sound of the phone being moved.

 

“That is how I take care of myself.” Nero laid back on a bed. He hit speakerphone and laid his phone on the bed next to him.

 

“Put down the bottle of whatever it is that's alcoholic. Cap it and stow it away. Then brush your teeth, get in your pajamas and go to bed damnit.” Dante groaned, but he heard the sound of a cap on a glass bottle.

 

“Anything else while I'm at it, mom?”

 

“Yeah, while you're at it do your homework and eat your vegetables.” They both got a rise out of that one. “Goodnight you big goof.” Once Dante had groaned out something like a ‘yeah whatever’, he hung up.

 

Sleep was harder to come by than he’d expected. Nero lay awake staring at an unmoving ceiling, looking for answers to questions he wasn't even aware of. He had to stop himself from texting Dante multiple times. It was late, and it wouldn't be fair to keep him from sleeping because Nero had his own problems. He turned onto his side, burying his face in his pillow with a groan. Sleep, he just needed sleep. It would fix everything that was running through his head.

 

Nero told himself that over and over, trying to block out thoughts of worthlessness from mis mind as he drifted off.


End file.
